


The Saint, the Sword, and the Spaceship

by diffugerenives



Category: 15th Century CE RPF, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-02-09 04:53:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12880572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diffugerenives/pseuds/diffugerenives
Summary: Cleopatra VII has, with the help of aliens, figured out how to locate a spaceship outside of time. With the help of Lucrezia Borgia, inter alias, she runs a rescue service for women throughout history.





	1. Prologue: Si je n'y suis, que dieu m'y mette

"Jeanne." 

Jeanne is accustomed to hearing voices. She doesn't open her eyes. What could Michael, or Catherine, or Margaret, want from her? Hasn't she given them enough? This prison cell was their doing. If they had not abandoned her, they should have. 

"Jeanne!"

This time the voice is closer. It is not the saints' sweet tones. It's much more annoyed. 

"Jeanne, may an alligator eat your heart and may you, I don't fucking know, roll a rock up a hill forever, open your eyes and listen to me." 

Jeanne opens her eyes. A woman with short black hair and a Roman nose stands in front of her, wearing uncouth garb. 

"Who are you?" Jeanne asks. 

"Introductions later," the woman says. "For now, you've got two choices for how to get out of here. I'd prefer number one, blow a hole in the side of this cell, but you might like number two, teleport the fuck out of here." 

"Teleport?" 

The woman sighs. "That's what Lucrezia would say, too. Something about 'subtlety' or something. I say, in the year 2000 they won't believe that the castle blew up by the Devil's work, so you might as well go out with a bang." 

Jeanne stares at her. 

"Come on, kid, take my hand!" 

Jeanne stares at her, then looks down at the shackles. 

"Oh for –" She kneels and takes out a lockpick. After about three seconds, the lock opens, and Jeanne rubs her hands gratefully. " _Now_ you can take my hand," she says, and Jeanne does so. 

The woman pulls out a small device, shining silver, and presses a button. There is a blinding white flash. When Jeanne can see again, the castle is gone. Instead she and the woman are standing in front of a large plate glass window that looks out on the stars. A small blonde woman is waiting for them. 

"Cleopatra, I see you got out of there without blowing anything up," she says. 

"I'm sure Jeanne wouldn't have appreciated it." 

Jeanne looks at the darkhaired woman dumbfoundedly. 

"Cleopatra…?" 

Cleopatra bows. "Cleopatra VII Philopater, at your service." 

"But aren't you supposed to be beautiful?" 

"Aren't _you_ supposed to be a witch?"


	2. What's the Difference Between a Space Station and a Castle?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeanne wanders the space station and finds a purpose.

Jeanne is still not used to it. “It” encompasses nearly everything she’s seen, heard, eaten, drunk, tasted, and done since her rescue. Cleopatra doesn’t want her “tagging along” everywhere, and indeed she’d felt like a child bothering her older sister. But she needed to get her bearings somehow. The blonde woman, Lucrezia, had given her a brief overview, but the spoken words didn’t seem to have anything to do with the reality of the place she now found herself in. And Lucrezia was too busy with maps and plans and plots to spend the time to acclimate their newest rescue. 

She feels useless. She hates feeling useless. 

Her saints did not seem to have entered orbit with her. Or else their need is stilled; indeed, she hadn’t heard from them during her captivity. But she is lonely without them. Nothing guides her, nothing impels her forward. 

One day she receives a message, on the strange screen in her sleeping quarters. It reads only “Come find me. H.” 

Jeanne is thankful to H., whoever she is. She touches the screen (that much Lucrezia had instructed her in) and brings up a map of the space station. She’s wandered through much of it, but it’s just so big: bigger, she thinks, than even Paris. On the map, she finds a quarter of the place she’s sure she’s never seen. Let’s start there, she thinks. 

She wanders. Everything is so clean – both free of grime and elegant. The corridors arch like the doors of a cathedral, made of shining metal smoother than anything she'd ever seen. It's beautiful, but nothing had prepared her for it, or could have prepared her for it. 

She reaches the unknown quarter of the station. The air is slightly cooler here, and dry. She passes doors with writing on them, and, since she still can't read, picks one at random. 

It opens on a huge room, extending up as far as she can see, the walls lined with books. She stops and stares. She doesn't know anything about books, but she does know that they're expensive. The cost of such a hoard as this would have equipped her entire army. 

"Ah, you've made it." 

Jeanne whips around to find the speaker. She's a tall woman with dark blonde hair braided in a crown around her head. She looks kind; she's smiling pleasantly. 

"I'm Hildegard. I apologize for the tardiness of my welcome to you – Lucrezia and Cleopatra are not, ah, good at explaining things. I hope I am, though you're the first person I've had to explain them to." 

"Can you explain….everything? I'm glad to be rescued, of course, this is better than burning on the Rosbifs' stake, but I hate this!" The words burst out of her before she realizes they are true. "I hate not knowing what's going on, I hate being alone, I hate feeling stupid."

"I can explain what I understand," Hildegard says. "Which is not everything, but it is certainly more than you know. Sit down –" she gestures at a chair "–this may be a little much to take." 

Jeanne sits. Hildegard paces, her hands folded behind her back like a professor. 

"All of this is due to Cleopatra. She puts up a rough front, but she was the one who was able to create all this." 

"Through Egyptian magic?" 

"'Science,' I believe." Hildegarde smiles. "She was inspecting the books coming in to Alexandria when she found the plans for a strange machine. To summarize, it brought her to the future, where she was able to sell some of her jewels for astronomical prices. She hired artisans to build all this." Hildegarde gestures at the space station and the book-lined walls. "And she's made it her mission to save as many women as she can from their historical fates. You're the third, after Lucrezia and me. Cleopatra decided that she needed Lucrezia for her plotting skills and me to archive all the material she brought from the Library of Alexandria; she just likes you." 

"I suppose that's something," Jeanne says. "Is she planning a frontal attack on..." She trails off, realizing that she didn't have any idea what Cleopatra might want to attack. 

"There's nothing to attack. Our enemy fields no armies, musters no men. At least not intentionally." 

"A ghost?" Jeanne crosses herself instinctively. 

"No," Hildegarde says, and smiles slightly, knowing that the joke she's about to make isn't that funny, "a Geist, perhaps, but not a ghost." 

Jeanne, not understanding, says nothing. 

"I mean that the thing, if it can said to be a thing, that we're combatting is an attitude, a state of mind. The simplest way to explain is that we're fighting manhood." 

"Why?" 

"You wouldn't have been burned as a witch if you were a man." 

"No, but I wouldn't have gotten to command armies, either."

Hildegarde doesn't say the word "meritocracy." She doesn't believe in it; she's read the history of the modern world, and found it as unbending and unwelcoming as her own. "Perhaps," she answers. "But is it better to command or to live?" 

Jeanne takes longer to answer than Hildegarde had hoped. 

"I...to command," she says. Hildegarde is silent in disbelief. "I could not have lived a long life on a farm, herding sheep and tilling my field." 

"What's the feminine of Achilles?" Hildegard mutters.

"What?" 

"Never mind." She ruminates on her arguments. If any woman is in chains, she thinks, all women are. She doesn't want to make an argument based on freedom and possibility for noblewomen alone, especially not to a peasant. After all, Jeanne is bright, and holy, and could be mild; what an abbess she would have made! but her birth stood in her way. It must be the rule and not the exception that a woman's native intellect or skill should elevate her. 

"I don't mean to sound ungrateful," Jeanne says. 

"I understand," Hildegard says, and means it.

*

“We’ve got to get you out in the field," Lucrezia says, smiling at Jeanne. “You’ll have a lighter touch than Cleopatra, I’d think. You would shadow her, of course, but I think you’ll get the hang of it quickly.” 

“The hang of what,” Jeanne says sharply. “I’m the first person you rescued.” 

Lucrezia looks up at Jeanne as though she’s looking down at her. “The hang,” she says, “of agenting at all.” 

Cleopatra smirks. She has a good smirk. “Gunnery has improved since 1431,” she says. “For instance,” she continues, reaching into the pocket of her cargo pants, “this is a handgun. It’s actually accurate over long range,” she says smugly. 

"I don't think I want that," Jeanne says. 

"Why not?"

"My sword was only a symbol. This" - she picks up the gun, holding it with her fingertips - "isn't a symbol, or at least only a symbol of bad things. I won't use it." 

Lucrezia's lips twist. "Don't tell me, you still believe in honor." 

"I do," Jeanne says. 

"Your king, the man whose throne and crown you won, whom you loved, betrayed you - in most timelines - to your death. And you still believe in honor." Lucrezia has not been speaking to wound. She is recounting facts, pure and simple. 

"I do," Jeanne repeats. 

Lucrezia turns to Cleopatra and gives her an incredibly eloquent shrug. Cleopatra looks back, eyes unreadable. 

"Don't tell me you think she's being noble," Lucrezia says. 

"I can admire a position staked out and held," Cleopatra replies. 

"She's not going to be much use, is she?"

"I'm not a sheep," Jeanne snaps. "I can speak for myself. I wasn't a warrior. I wasn't even a soldier. I was a general. And more than that, I was a symbol. I'm out of date, I know. You don't need me to place cannon, which I was good at. But I can be a symbol again. I've seen the plays and movies about me. They're all terrible. 'O God that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to receive Thy saints? How long, O Lord, how long?'" she quotes. "I wasn't a saint." 

"Officially – " Cleopatra starts. Jeanne gives her a supremely nasty look. 

"Anyone can be a saint," she says. "All you need is a populace that's willing to forget and a Church that's willing to forgive." 

“Deep,” Lucrezia sneers.

“I’ll come with you on rescues, for sure,” Jeanne says. “But think of what it will mean for the Joan of Arc, a woman who inspired thousands and continues to do so, to be your banner holder. That’s more important by far than giving me a gun.” 

“She’s right,” Cleopatra says. 

"Whatever," Lucrezia says. "As long as you're not worried about getting killed." 

"The armor of God surrounds me," Jeanne says. She can tell that Lucrezia doesn't know whether she's being serious or not, and loves it. 

Lucrezia massages the bridge of her nose. "Well. Cleopatra will be contacting you with a mission soon, I'm sure."


	3. Little, But All Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cleopatra and Jeanne go to Lesbos to rescue Sappho from the dreadful fate of being forgotten.

"Come on, my sainted friend," Cleopatra says, dropping onto Jeanne's bed.

Jeanne rolls over, avoiding her neatly.

"What, by the rood, do you want?"  

"'By the rood,'" Cleopatra says. "How fucking charming."

"I forbid cursing in my army entirely," Jeanne says, sitting up and shrugging. "I lead by example."

"I _bet_ you do," Cleopatra says. It's not as nasty as it could have been. "Anyway, we're going on an adventure."

"Where and when?"  Jeanne asks.

"600 BC."

Jeanne's brows furrow.

"Have you heard of Sappho?" 

"No."

"You're a barbarian," Cleopatra says. "To be fair, it's not your fault entirely. She's a Lesbian poet. Supposedly she jumped off a cliff for a dude. I doubt it, but in any case, we're going to save her from her fate and get her to help Hildegard in the library."

 "Um, sure." Jeanne rubbed her eyes. "By the way, I was sleeping." Cleopatra shrugs eloquently. "Are you expecting any trouble?"

"Honestly," Cleopatra says, "no. But you should probably come along on an easy job."

"Have you had a hard one?"

"Well, no."

Jeanne nods silently and sagely.

"You're a real pain in the ass, Jeanne, you know that?"

"Me?" Jeanne says, "I am merely a simple peasant girl."  

 Cleopatra inhales deeply and exhales. "Yeah. Sure. Whatever."

*

"Ok, so this is what we've got. Take your pick of these two _peploi_."

Jeanne pulls the length of material from the bag Cleopatra offers her.

 "This is clothes? I'm not wearing this."

 "If you'd prefer men's clothes, you'd be showing a lot of leg. Do you want _that_? I'll even dress you and your hair."

 Jeanne sighs deeply. "I suppose." She allows Cleopatra to drape the _peplos_ around her, pin it with brooches she had to admit were beautiful, and to cover her hair. "Do I look as silly I as feel?" she asks.

 Cleopatra sighs. "Yes, unfortunately," she says. "Our clothes weren't really made for someone of your build."

 "You mean every single woman in Greece was bewitchingly slim?"

 "No, only that that was who the clothes were made for. Also you're built like a truck. Well, a small truck. I mean that in the best way possible. All muscle."  

 Jeanne rolls her eyes.

 "Anyway, it's good enough."

 They arrive on Lesbos on a warm day in the late summer, what Jeanne would call late August. Jeanne looks out from the citadel of Mitylene and gasps. She has never seen so much water in one place - never seen the sea. Here the island floats in the midst of a vast blueness, that she could not even begin to compare to the lakes of France.

 "It's beautiful, isn't it?" Cleopatra says, an unaccustomed softness in her voice.

 "Yes," Jeanne breathes.

 "Oh," Cleopatra says, taking a pill out of a bag she'd been carrying under the peplos, "take this."

 Jeanne takes it, looking at it dubiously. "What is it?"

 "Greek, condensed. You'll skip _years_ of language learning. It's one of those things that Hildegard figured out."

 Jeanne swallows the pill. It falls apart in her mouth, and tastes of old scrolls and dust. She doesn't feel any different.

 "All right," Cleopatra says, rearranging Jeanne's peplos, "what's your name?"

 "Rhodope," Jeanne says. She knows what it means, and disagrees.

 "Very good," says Cleopatra. "Now, let's go."

 They walk through Mitylene together. Now that the shock of the sea has worn off, Jeanne sees that it's a trading town like any in France, though the look of the people is somewhat different, and the clothes, of course, she sees a Cretan go by, naked to the waist and wearing a kilt.

 "Don't stare, Rhodope," Cleopatra says in an undertone, elbowing Jeanne.

 "I just – It's a lot."

 Cleopatra rolls her eyes. "Now, let's get started. Sappho was already famous, so we shouldn't have trouble finding her. You're –" she eyes Jeanne "–I'm an aspiring poet, who would love to meet the Tenth Muse. You're my country cousin."

 "Yeah, whatever," Jeanne says. "I'm hungry."

 For answer, Cleopatra gives a look that takes in the plethora of merchants' stands. Jeanne can hear them calling, offering the freshest fish, the best meat, the juiciest apples.

 Jeanne goes up to a stall selling some sort of seafood on a stick.

 "I'll take care of this," Cleopatra says, and orders.

 The shopkeeper stares at her. "Slower," he says. Cleopatra repeats herself.

 "I'm getting one word out of five," the shopkeeper says.

 "Fuck," Cleopatra mutters, in English. "Rhodope, order us some food," she tells Jeanne.

 Jeanne, having no real idea of what to do, asks for whatever the shopkeeper thinks is best. She lets him hear the clink of coins in her purse. _This_ she's done before.

 He provides them with a feast. Jeanne bargains for a little while, for the fun of it, and then pays him from her store.

 She rushes Cleopatra away, carrying the food.

 "What _happened_?" she asks.

 "I'm a fucking _idiot_ , is what happened," Cleopatra says. "600 years and a different goddamn dialect. Of _course_ he doesn't understand me. And I don't have another pill, and all I know of Lesbian dialect comes from Sappho's poems, so yeah, I can complain about not having a girlfriend, or having a girlfriend who got married, but I can't fucking order _food_."

 "Can't we go back and get you a pill?" Jeanne asks.

 "Hildegard didn't explain timeslots to you?"

 Jeanne shakes her head.

 "We're here for a certain amount of time, in this case five days. During that time, there's _no_ way for us to contact the ship, or for them to contact us. So no, we can't go back and get me a pill."

 They eat the food in silence, after that.

 "All right," Cleopatra says, after food had restored their souls, "new plan. Tonight you get a crash course in Greek meter –"

 "I don't know _French_ meter," Jeanne says.

 "You don't have to be good," Cleopatra says. "You just have to be good enough. So. You learn about meter – probably elegiacs, I don't think I can show up to Sappho with a girl who writes in Sapphics – and now _you're_ the one who wants to learn poetry from Sappho and I'm your mute cousin."

 "I don't think you can keep your mouth shut long enough to pretend to be mute," Jeanne says.

 Cleopatra tightens her mouth grimly. "Just don't say anything dumb and I won't have to correct you. Now, let's go buy some papyrus and a stylus."

 Jeanne's never had freedom like this, she realizes. Even as general of an army – especially as general of an army – her time and movement had been constrained. Sure, it's only five days, but that seems like forever.

 That night, in the inn, Cleopatra takes out the papyrus and writes, in a flowing script,

 μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος.

 "Okay," she says, "this is in dactylic hexameter. It's Homer, by the way, since you're a barbarian. So. The basic foot is this:" _— ∪ ∪_ she writes, "or this:" — — "where the things that look like Roman Us are short syllables and the dashes are long syllables. The eta in μῆνιν is long; the iota is short, and the alpha in ἄειδε is also short, giving us a dactyl. And," she says, looking at Jeanne's blank look, "you have no idea what I'm talking about."  

 "Sure don't!" Jeanne says.

 Cleopatra sighs. "Well, _I_ don't speak 7th century BC Aeolian, so you're going to stay up until you learn this. I'll go _even_ slower."  

 By the end of the night, Jeanne can compose a bad elegiac couplet. "You're a good teacher," she tells Cleopatra.

 "Thank you," Cleopatra says, with some surprise at Jeanne's sincerity. "All right. We've got –" she pulls a modern watch out of her peplos "–three days and 22 hours. Let's get moving."

 She leads Jeanne into the more affluent part of Mitylene and tells Jeanne to ask after Sappho at the first house with a laurel wreath over the door. Jeanne knocks.

 "Uh," she says. "I've come from Agiasos to study with Sappho, could you, uh, direct me to her?"

 Behind her, Cleopatra closes her eyes.

 "I will take you to my mistress," says the servant who'd opened the door.

 "Is no one going to worry about us being two women alone?" Jeanne asks Cleopatra in English.

 "I'm sure they will," Cleopatra whispers. "Just tell them your father has died or something."

 "And my brothers?"

 "Plague," Cleopatra says. Jeanne nods sagely. She knows about plague.

 The servant leads them through what seems to Jeanne to be a huge house. At last he brings them to a room where a woman, heavy, and wearing what was probably too much make-up, reclines, reading from a scroll, while a flute-player plays softly.

 "Adrastos, who are these people?" she asks. Jeanne knew women like her, in France. She's covering a sharp mind with her languid, pleasure-seeking appearance.

 "Strangers, mistress," he says. "Seeking Sappho. The shorter one is Rhodope; she's the poetess. Her cousin is mute."

 "Ah." The woman turns to look at them, and Jeanne has the feeling of _intense_ scrutiny. "I am Aglaia. I do know Sappho, in fact. But why should I introduce you to her?"

 Jeanne has, though she hates it, learned how to fake sincerity over the course of her trial. "I _really_ want to be a poet, mistress," she says. "Ever since I heard the words of the divine Homer at my father's knee, I knew that I too was born to write winged words." She was going to hear about this from Cleopatra as soon she could talk, she knew.

 "Oh?" said Aglaia, raising an eyebrow. "Have you composed anything?"

 "I have, mistress," Jeanne says, keeping her head deferentially lowered.

 "Let's hear it."

 Behind her, Jeanne hears the rustling of Cleopatra's peplos. She's either making a rude gesture or burying her head in her hands.

 "The stars have turned their faces to the ground," Jeanne begins. She doesn't look at Aglaia. She can't bear to. "Their lights are vanquished by sorrow/for Hippodameia, whom I loved..." She looks up. Aglaia is looking at her, stony-faced.

 "You could be worse," she says. "The meter wavers a little in the third foot, and I'm not sure you've mastered elegiacs, but an educated country girl is always a novelty – and I'm _sure_ Sappho would love to meet you." She turns to the servant. "Adrastos, give our guests refreshments."

 He brings out cold water and fruit, and cheese. Jeanne eats as daintily as she can, feeling both Cleopatra and Aglaia looking at her.

 She knows perfectly well Aglaia knows something's up. The woman's not dumb. She can't figure out, though, _what_ she thinks is up, and that makes things more difficult. The other problem was, of course, that Cleopatra had told her some things about Ancient Greece, but, like her language, it was most likely - out of date wasn't the right word, but it was the closest she could get - but she didn't know enough to bullshit her way out of the situation, or even into Aglaia's good graces.

_Margaret, Catherine, and Michael, if you still have any power here, let me not say anything_ horribly _wrong, inspire my tongue as you did at my trial,_ Jeanne thinks. _Oh God, my God, what if she asks me about life on the farm? What if they herd their sheep differently_ ? _And I don't know how to_ weave _._

 "How have you found the city, Rhodope?" Aglaia asks.

 Jeanne takes a second to react, and looks up just as Cleopatra subtly nudges her in the ribs.

"It's big, mistress," Jeanne says. She can _hear_ Cleopatra close her eyes despairingly.

"That it is," Aglaia says, "Though of course it can't compare to Athens."

"Sappho of Lesbos can rival any poet of Athens," Jeanne says.

Aglaia laughs, a genuine laugh or a very good fake one. "Perhaps there is more silver in your tongue than I'd thought," she says. "Tell me, and I hope you won't think me horribly rude, why your cousin is mute."

Jeanne is shocked by her bluntness, and hopes it doesn't show on her face, which she never really learned to guard.

"God - _the_ god," she says, "the god Apollo took her voice from her, when she was just a child."

Aglaia settles back on her couch. "I see." Her tone invites Jeanne to elaborate. Jeanne does not elaborate.

They finish the food, and Jeanne thanks her host politely.

"You are most welcome," she says. "Now, this is beyond forward, but I hope you will join me for some wine – alone."

Jeanne runs through her options for refusal, and realizes there aren't any. "Of course," she says.

"Adrastos!" Aglaia cries. "Bring wine and water to my room."

"So," she says, when Jeanne has settled on the bed, "what in the name of the gods is going on with you two? Your cousin's not mute. _You're_ not from here. She's not your cousin. Why do you want to meet Sappho? I'll still introduce you, of course. A promise is a promise. But I can't figure out what is going on, and _that_ bothers me. I like to know what's going on."

_If my interrogators had phrased it like_ that _,_ Jeanne thinks, _I might have been less stubborn_. She pauses. "We're time traveling all over the world and throughout history" wouldn't go over well. So she goes back to what she's used to: she can be a messenger of divinity.

"Apollo struck my friend dumb," Jeanne says. "But to me he gave a great Purpose: to bring Sappho to his courts, to truly be the Tenth Muse."

"And he didn't give you better poetic skills?" Aglaia says.

"No," Jeanne says. "He came to me when I was at the spring, tending the sheep, and told me what I must do. But he said that I must do it myself, with no aid but the aid of the one who had transgressed against him – my friend, Cleopatra."

"A pretty story," Aglaia says. She doesn't sound entirely convinced.  "I have been a bad host; I have pressed you for truths you do not want to reveal. So now I will let you sleep, and tomorrow I will introduce you to Sappho, because I do trust that you mean her no harm."

Jeanne turns to go. "One more thing," Aglaia says.

"Yes?"

"Get better at reacting to your false name."

 Jeanne smiles ruefully. "Thanks," she says, and goes to join Cleopatra. 

*

"You could have fucked that up worse," Cleopatra says. It's high praise, coming from her.

 "Thanks," Jeanne replies. "Now what's the plan about Sappho? I hope you took the time between my rescue and now to write out a pocket explanation of what is about to happen, and to give people the choice."

 "The choice? Between death and life?"

 "Yes," Jeanne says.

 "Aren't you glad to have been rescued?"

 "Yes. But I'm not the only person in the world. This is why they shouldn't have sainted me: I was willing to lie, in the hope of freedom and of life. There are others who have more conviction than me."

 "Do you think Sappho's one of them?"

 Jeanne shrugs. "From what you've told me, and what I read, no. But you should still give her the choice, before ripping her from her time and her people."

"You mean _you_ should."

"Yes, I suppose I do."

"Now, stop thinking about ethics and go to sleep. We've got a busy day tomorrow."

 *

_What am I going to do,_ Jeanne thinks, _just go in there and tell her the truth_ ? _We're not really rescuing her, the way Cleopatra rescued me; she's got a full life that we'd be taking her from. And_ God, _that spaceship is sterile. If I could stay here, I probably would – the sea! the sea is so beautiful_.

She tosses and turns, horribly conscious of every point of her body, from ankle to knee to hip to elbow.  
Dawn comes eventually – she knows enough to call it "rosy-fingered" – and she's probably slept, but she isn't really conscious of having done so. She looks over at Cleopatra, who is sleeping peacefully, with bitter resignation.

Eventually, when she's waited in the half-light long enough, she nudges Cleopatra in the ribs.

"What _time_ is it?" she asks groggily.

"How should I know?" says Jeanne. "Some time past dawn."

"Good enough," Cleopatra says. She swings her feet down from the bed, wincing a little as her feet hit the cold floor. "Let's go."

There's a knock on the door. Jeanne opens it a sliver. The girl standing outside is tiny, both short and slim, and probably around seventeen. She carries a stack of folded material.  

"I'm here to dress you," she says. "The mistress sent me."

"Oh!" says Jeanne, who, until Cleopatra had arranged the peplos around her, had never had anyone help her dress (she didn't count her squire: that was a very different kind of armor). "Come in."

The girl enters, and unfolds the cloth she'd been carrying. "The mistress says that you deserve better clothes than you had," she says.

"Oh," says Jeanne, again. "I didn't think ours were that bad."

The girl laughs merrily. "Not for the country, maybe, but you can do better in Mytilene!"

Jeanne turns to look at Cleopatra, who shrugs. 

"Is it really true that your cousin can't speak?" the girl asks.

"Yes," says Jeanne, and, worried that she'll sound as mute as Cleopatra was claiming to be, "she was struck dumb by Apollo." She feels vaguely guilty for talking about a pagan god as though he was real, but she was no theologian – maybe the divine was everywhere, waiting to be born.

The girl's eyes go wide. "Oh!" she exclaims. "That's so exciting and romantic!"  
Cleopatra raises her head in agreement. Jeanne can't read her face; she thinks what's she's seeing is amusement mixed with deep annoyance, but Cleopatra has, over long years of rule, learned to conceal her true feelings almost completely.

"Anyway," the girl says, "the mistress says you'd look best in blue, Rhodope, and white for you, Cleopatra."

She dresses and adorns them. Jeanne has never felt so out of place; even the spaceship, with its sterility, was better than this prison of femininity that she thought she'd fled. She doesn't know how to behave, and thanks Cleopatra silently for the cover story – she hadn't known how to behave at Charles' court either, because she was a peasant girl, and now all she had to do was hope that Greek sheep weren't very different from French sheep.  
The girl leads them down to Aglaia, who is wearing less makeup today. _She's younger than she looks_ , Jeanne thinks.

"You two look lovely," she says.

"Thank you, ma'am," Jeanne says. It's still uncomfortable to look at Aglaia's face, especially her eyes, which always seem to be examining and probing.

"Well," Aglaia says, "I promised to take you to Sappho, and I will. You've arrived just in time – she's holding a meeting of her circle today."

Aglaia has them _carried_ in a _sedan chair_ . Jeanne has never ever seen one. _Carried by_ people? she thinks. _This is unbelievably uncomfortable._ Cleopatra, of course, is completely at ease.

Sappho's circle meets on a cliff, in a little arena. Jeanne has never seen so many beautiful girls in one place; even Agnès Sorel couldn't compare to the least beautiful of them. Cleopatra elbows her in the ribs – an obvious "don't stare."

And there, in the middle of a knot of women, was Sappho herself. She was small, sturdy, and dark, almost lost among the willowy girls who surrounded her.

Aglaia takes Jeanne by the hand. "Come along," she says. "Sappho knows me." She cuts through the crowd.

"Sappho!" she says, embracing her, "I am so glad to see you!"

"Dearest Aglaia," Sappho says. Jeanne goes weak in the knees. Sappho's voice is as beautiful as her body is common. "I am glad to see you as well. And who have you brought me?"

"Her name is Rhodope," Aglaia says. "She's a country girl, who managed to teach herself something of elegiac poetry –" Sappho's eyebrows raise "–and she wanted to come to learn from the very best."

 "Ah," Sappho says. "Rhodope, will you recite some of _your_ verses for me?"

_More_? thinks Jeanne. She can't reuse the lines she'd spoken for Aglaia, she knows that.

 "Uh, sure," Jeanne says, and with a dry throat, begins.

"Dark is the moon as it sinks into the sea;  
    on the rocks, the sea breaks sadly.  
I am alone again, thinking of the girl   
   whom once I loved, who is gone."

Sappho listens carefully. "Not bad, especially as you're self-taught. Why don't you partner with Thaïs for critique?"

Thaïs is tall and blonde and impossibly graceful. She's also a terrible poet, and is aware that she's a terrible poet, and doesn't mind. She welcomes Jeanne with a kiss on each cheek.

"I'm Rhodope," Jeanne says. "I'm from the country." 

"Of course you are." Thaïs turns her radiant face down to look at Jeanne. "Whoever dressed you overdid it. You were made for simplicity." There is a short pause. "I am not a poet," she says. "I was made for other arts. But Sappho has absorbed me into her circle nonetheless, on the strength of my face, I assume."

Jeanne shrugs. "Are we supposed to – to share our poems?"

"Not if you don't want to," Thaïs says. "I can teach you how to braid my hair, if you'd like."

Gently, Jeanne combs through Thaïs's lustrous golden hair, afraid to tug too hard, encouraged by Thaïs's calm instruction. They're not the only ones who aren't working – Jeanne sees two girls kissing, in fact, and is only _slightly_ shocked: she would have been lying to herself if she didn't admit that there were girls in Domrémy she wanted to kiss. Thaïs catches the direction of Jeanne's gaze.

 "Would you like to kiss _me_?" she asks, teasing seriously.

 "I've never –" Jeanne says, shy and sure that she shouldn't be kissing someone who she was going to have to leave behind in a day. But Thaïs turns around and kisses her, the golden glory of her hair surrounding both of them. "You're beautiful," Jeanne whispers against her lips. She's not thinking any more, though the scolding she was going to get from Cleopatra later is somewhere in the back of her mind.

They spend a pleasant day, kissing and not talking about poetry, until the sun starts to descend into the brilliant blue sea.

 Sappho pulls Jeanne aside, as they're all getting ready to leave.

"Aglaia is sure you have something important to tell me," she says.

Her mind still tangled in Thaïs' hair, Jeanne says, "Uh, yes." Sappho waits. In a snap second, Jeanne decides. "We're from the future," she says. "We're here because in two thousand years, so much of your work will be lost, but what we have will be enshrined, even the fragments, even the scraps. We can take you with us, make sure your songs are saved."

Sappho listens to this calmly. She doesn't disbelieve her, Jeanne sees clearly.

"Can't you just take a book of my poems?" she says.

"We could," Jeanne says. "But we want you to be there to help us archive all the material we save; we want your discerning eye and your beautiful voice. We want to ensure your immortality."

"Ah," says Sappho. "Very well. Do I need to bring anything?"

"That's it?" Jeanne says. "You're convinced? You're coming?"

"I don't see why not," she says.

Jeanne is entirely at a loss for words. 

"Now, how does this work?"

 Looking around, Jeanne sees Thaïs getting ready to leave. _Cleopatra will be furious_ , she thinks. She decides she doesn't care.

"Thaïs!" she calls. "Come here. I have something to tell you."

Thaïs listens calmly. "I don't know," she says. "This sounds fake. But I do know, Rhodope, that I would go anywhere with you."

 Jeanne calls Cleopatra over.

"What have you _done_?" Cleopatra asks, in furious English.

"She's coming," Jeanne says, calmly. "We'll deal with everything else later."

"Fine. Fine." Cleopatra says.

Jeanne takes Thaïs and Sappho's hands.  

"This is a little disconcerting," she says. "Just hold on tight."

Cleopatra reaches into her peplos and pulls out the teleportation device.

"Not really _made_ for four," she mutters, "but it'll _work_."

She pushes the button, and there is a blinding flash, bright against the darkness of the new night.


	4. The Crescent Begins to Wax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doubts; the spaceship gets a name; Lucrezia gives some exposition.

Despite Lucrezia's palpable coldness, Thaïs fits herself in to life aboard the spaceship perfectly. Better than Jeanne, in fact, and Jeanne is annoyed by this. It's Thaïs who, charmingly, asks Lucrezia if the ship has a name. 

  
"No," Lucrezia says.

  
Thaïs smiles winningly. "Shouldn't it? After all, everyone names their ships. And this one is so beautiful, and so huge. It's even better than the Argo."

  
Lucrezia smiles, the arctic chill still there. "You might ask Cleopatra. It's her ship, after all."

  
The smile that Thaïs gives Lucrezia in return is perfectly genuine, like a sunbeam.  "I'll do that, then."

  
"Jeanne," Lucrezia says. Jeanne turns. "Stay."

  
She bristles at being commanded, but she stays. Lucrezia rarely speaks to her, preferring Cleopatra's company, so she's curious.

  
She tilts her head, much the way, she realizes, as she had done when the inquisitors had asked her a particularly annoying question. "What do you want of me?" she says.

  
"I don't trust her," Lucrezia says bluntly.

  
"I –"

  
"You 'love' her," Lucrezia sneers. "You've known her for all of a week."

  
"What do you suspect her of?" Jeanne asks.

  
Lucrezia drums her fingers on the fiberglass of the control panel. "To be fair, I don't  _ know _ . But I know that if Cleopatra has discovered time travel, it's entirely possible that someone else could have."

  
"And planted Thaïs?"

  
Lucrezia makes a despairing gesture with her left hand, like a bird fluttering in the air. "Yes. She  _ was _ rather aggressive, in your account.  _ I  _ would not be so eager to leave my own time, or so quick to believe in travel through the ages." 

  
"Why  _ did  _ you leave?" Jeanne asks.

  
"You're impertinent."

  
The right side of Jeanne's mouth quirks up. "Always have been." 

  
"Well. It's complicated."

  
"Tell me. I want to understand more about – well, about everything. I feel like I've been kept in the dark, and I don't like it."

"Have you spoken with Hildegard? No, never mind. I'll tell you. I lay on my deathbed. And as I lay dying, before my eyes there came a shimmering, like, I assume, one of your angels. And from that shimmering stepped a woman, who I could not imagine as an angel. And, to be sure, the life that I had led did not merit an angel's visit on my deathbed. In any case, she was dressed in strange clothes, and a weapon, like the guns of my time but sleeker, was strapped to her leg. Yes, Jeanne, it was Cleopatra.

  
'Do you know what they're going to do to your reputation?' she said, without preamble.

  
'They can't do anything more than they already have,' I replied, weakly.

  
She gave a snort of laughter. 'Yeah, they can. Anyway, not the point. I can save you.'

  
'Now? when I am, well, not old, but –'

  
'Not at your prime,' Cleopatra said.

  
'Exactly,' I said.

  
'Well. Let me think - the thing is,' and she launched into an explanation of time travel that I couldn't even come close to telling you, because I had no idea what she was talking about. I stared at her blankly.

  
'Yes,' she said, eventually. 'I'll come to you – pick an age.'

  
'Twenty-two,' I said.

  
'Sure. I'll come for you when you're twenty-two. I don't  _ think  _ it'll screw anything up,' she said, under her breath.

  
I was sure I wasn't supposed to hear that part, so I said nothing. In any case, I died the next day, according to history.

  
One bright day in Ferrara, about twenty years earlier, I was walking along the Po, alone. I was the Duchess of Ferrara – if I wanted to walk alone, I could. I saw a shimmering in the air, and was sure that the angels were coming to take me to Hell for my behavior in life. I was twenty-two, and though I was not particularly religious, you can imagine that, young and with my reputation already smeared, I was terrified.

  
Cleopatra stepped out.

  
'So,' she said. 'You're twenty-two.'

  
'What?' I said. 'I am, but how do you know? And are you a, a sorceress? I shall call for my guards!'

  
Her hand snaked out and held my wrist in an iron grip. 'You won't,' she said. I didn't. She reached into her pocket and took out a device, which replayed the conversation I told you about. I fainted.

  
When I came to, she was still there, sitting on one of the tall stones of the bridge, eating bread and cheese. 'You're awake,' she said.

  
'You didn't try to help me!' I accused.

  
She shrugged. 'I moved you,' she said. 'And I knew you'd be fine.'

  
I fumed silently.

  
'So. You've got a choice, Lucrezia. Death in childbed in twenty years, or a long life with me.' She smiled, baring white teeth.

  
'I'll come with you,' I said.  

  
'Wonderful,' she said. 'Take my hand.'

  
I obeyed, and suddenly I was here. I was as shocked as you were, but Cleopatra gave me the time to acclimate, which, I have to admit, she didn't give you. And besides, she gave me my memories – bottled, somehow, with technology, or magic, or something, that I don't understand. She also explained to me that she had caused an alternate universe to be created, a turning-off in time – a world where Lucrezia, duchess of Ferrara, disappeared at age twenty-two, leaving behind a grieving husband."

  
Lucrezia stops and draws breath. "And now you know."

  
"I suppose I do," says Jeanne. "What about me? Did my, uh, rescue cause an alternate world?"

  
"No," Lucrezia says, "or at least not a significantly different one – you were going to die the next day in any case."

  
"Oh," Jeanne says.

  
"But this has taken us far afield," Lucrezia says, and a shadow crosses her blue eyes.  "The point is still that I don't trust Thaïs. Who would come into parts – times! – unknown, with only the word of a stranger as guarantee of safety, unless they  _ knew _ already, or were in dire danger?"

  
"I'll watch her," Jeanne says slowly, "but I  _ do  _ trust her."

  
"Very well," Lucrezia says, and it's then that Thaïs comes back, smiling her brilliant smile.

  
"Cleopatra has given me leave to name the ship!" she says. "Jeanne, help me."

  
Jeanne's smile is, she fears, a little guarded. "I don't have any ideas, beyond the  _ Saint Catherine _ ."

  
"What's a saint?" Thaïs asks.  
  
Lucrezia closes her eyes slowly, like a cat.  
  
"Never mind," Jeanne says. "Do you have any ideas?"

  
"Something from nature," Thaïs says. "The  _ Waxing Crescent _ ?"

  
"As good as anything else," Lucrezia says, with some annoyance.

+

Life aboard the  _ Waxing Crescent  _ falls into a pattern. They eat together, tensely and silently (none of the new arrivals ask about where the food comes from; there are larger miracles here); Jeanne and Cleopatra exercise together, while Sappho and Hildegard work in the library. Thaïs and Lucrezia avoid each other, like magnets with opposite poles. Lucrezia mostly spends her time staring down at Earth from the control panel, her thoughts obscure and fleeting. 

Lucrezia worries: about Thaïs, about the future, about everyone on board. She worries that she is overly suspicious – that Thaïs is, in fact, the innocent, excited girl she seems to be, and that she herself has learned to plot too much from her father and brothers.

  
She also feels useless: she isn't sure, she had to admit, why Cleopatra had rescued her, if you could call it a rescue. Her mind is dark and nasty, full of doubt and suspicion: if you needed someone to construct plots, she could be there; but what else?

  
It's Thaïs who breaks the silence.

  
"What do you have against me?" she asks, bluntly, one day.

  
Lucrezia sighs deeply. "Nothing," she says, painting truth across her face.

  
"Is that true?" Thaïs asks. 

  
"As true as it needs to be," Lucrezia says.  _ I'm slipping,  _ she thinks.  _ If I couldn't hide that I disliked someone at home, I would have been in a  _ much  _ worse position _ . 

  
"I am as devoted to the cause as you are," Thaïs says. "I don't know what I've done to cause you to doubt me."

  
"You've done nothing." This time Lucrezia is speaking nothing but the truth. "If I have caused you to feel unwelcome, I am truly sorry."

  
Thaïs's laugh is like sunlight rippling on the water of a mountain stream. "You have not," she says. "Come, we look alike. Let us be sisters."

  
Looking at Thaïs is like looking into a mirror, Lucrezia realizes. She is taller, and slimmer, according to the fashion of her own time, but otherwise quite similar. Lucrezia forces herself to smile. "Indeed."

  
The thing continues to be that Lucrezia does not  _ like _ Thaïs. She tries to hide it better.

  
Lucrezia waits. She doesn't know what she's waiting for. But she waits.


End file.
